Notes for Class Twenty-Four: How Gender Affects Thinking

Recent research indicates that there are significant differences between masculine and feminine ways of resolving ethical dilemmas and experiencing reality. Masculine patterns of thought are often understood as objective and logical, while feminine reasoning is described as subjective and intuitive. To the extent that philosophical reflection has typically emphasized masculine ways of thinking, it overlooks the equally valuable feminine strategies of reasoning.

I. According to William Perry, people progress through a series of attitudes toward knowledge:

1. In the first stage (duality), they assume that every belief is either true or false and is learned passively from experts.
2. In the second stage ( unacceptable multiplicity), they recognize that the "experts" don't always agree, so either one view must be correct (and all others wrong) or all views must be wrong.
(In these first two stages, a person still thinks that there is a correct (vs. incorrect) answer and that the purpose of education is simply to learn the answers.)
3. In the third stage ( acceptable multiplicity), people recognize how some questions might not have one right answer, and they think that everyone is justified in believing whatever he or she wants to believe about such questions.
4. In the final stage ( relativism), we insist that opinions be justified by rational arguments which sometimes support conflicting explanations of the same event or phenomenon.

II. Some feminist theorists (e.g., Mary Field Belenky) argue, however, that Perry's developmental stages characterize how men think of knowledge but do not represent the progressive stages of knowing through which women pass. They suggest that the stages for feminine cognitive development are as follows:

1. As with the masculine model, the feminine model begins with passive acceptance of knowledge received from authorities.
2. That stage is followed by subjective knowledge, in which a person assumes that there are right answers which are based on personal experience and intuition, not outside authorities.
3. In the third stage, a person recognizes that knowledge is objective and rational insofar as it is the result of procedures that either (a) separate the knower from what is known by emphasizing objective facts, impartial reason, critical thinking, and questioning of opposing positions, or (b) connect the knower with other knowers through dialogue and discussion. Separate knowing is impersonal, adversarial, critical, and typically masculine. Connected knowing relies on shared experiences, empathy, sensitivity, and extended personal contact based on acceptance and toleration of the feelings and ideas of others. Both forms of procedural knowing seek accurate knowledge and understanding, but separate knowing does not consider feelings of empathy, trust, or personal relationships as significant in obtaining objective knowledge.
4. In the fourth stage, a person combines the good qualities of the objective, scientific, and rational approach and the subjective, intuitive, emotional, and personal approach in constructed knowledge. This synthesis assumes that all knowledge is constructed within a frame of reference or theory and that "facts" have meaning only within some context or point of view adopted by a knower. In order to understand an answer to a question, we have to understand who asks it, why it is asked, and how it can be answered. We must also identify with what we are trying to understand if we expect to comprehend it.

[Note how this fourth stage requires that we approach the study of philosophers' ideas sympathetically, not searching for ways to show how they are wrong or contradictory, but looking for ways to think as they do. This form of philosophizing is not about learning facts about someone's positions; it is about learning to think in different ways.]

III. In contrast to the feminine model of thinking, the masculine model does not permit a place for intuition. By emphasizing logic and the scientific method, it ignores the importance of personal experience and treats intuition as an inferior manner of knowing. Furthermore, the masculine model seeks to make knowledge rational and objective by emphasizing the need for emotional detachment. In feminine knowing, by contrast, the constructive knower tries to overcome such detachment in order to appreciate better the object of her study and her own presuppositions that might stand in the way of alternative ways of thinking.

In feminist epistemology, emotions are critical factors in achieving knowledge insofar as they guide our thoughts, focus our attention, and influence our observations. Emotions do not stand in the way of achieving objective knowledge of reality as much as they help construct what we think of as the world. People who are more in tune with how their emotions affect their thinking are thus more able to recognize how appeal to unquestionable "facts" might simply be a means by which those in power oppress others.